404 : Chase Clymer – Create a content production system to create demand for your products

If you know me I love systems. Systems bring you consistency and small consistent actions over time bring big results. Chase helps us (me) with step by step instructions on what the “Outliers” are accomplishing by using these steps. Chase also will help you master Shopify for your best results.

Here is transcript- It is automated so it is not perfect but it does seem to get better over time.

Chase: [00:00:00] We don’t have the budget, I would say you need to sit down and write a blog a week yourself. Like that’s just get that in your habit. Uh, but if you have a little bit more of a budget, maybe you want to hire a writer to help you produce a blog a week. Um, caveat on hiring writers. Make sure they’re good, make sure it’s English. Uh, and if you are want to save some money, you can hire a blog researcher that may be at a cheaper price point, maybe a, uh, you know, developing country where you can get a writers for a little bit cheaper. But then you are also going to have to hire an editor to turn it into actual American English. Uh, I’ve seen some people do that, so that’s a pretty good tip there. They’ll save you a little bit of money on your blog writing, or if you don’t want to deal with that many people, just hire one good writer.

Cool voice guy: [00:00:45] Welcome to the e-commerce momentum podcast where we focus on the people, the products, and the process of ecommerce selling. Today, here’s your host, Steven [inaudible]

Stephen: [00:00:56] Peterson. Hey, wanted to take a second and talk about Gaye Lisby and Gary, Ray’s Amazon seller tribe and their daily lists that are put out, um, and incredible stories that you can read if you go out and check out, uh, amazing. freedom.com, forward slash momentum hyphen arbitrage. I know that’s a lot to put in there. Amazing freedom.com, forward slash momentum dash Arbitron and you’re going to get 14 day free trial, no money risk, no, no challenges. You don’t want it when you’re done, you get out. But imagine getting list, um, as grateful as like they call it mailbox money. I love that term. Mailbox money. It’s where you can work from your house, buy things online, have them delivered to you and then sell them on various marketplaces. But imagine you can have somebody else do that for you. So you want to buy time, you want to control, uh, what they’re buying.

Stephen: [00:01:55] Well, you take these lists and you can join multiple lists if you’re interested. And then you can segregate them for the merchandise you want and send them to them. They can make purchases for you on your behalf. Have it delivered to you or delivered to them for prep. Boom, sent into these marketplaces and you could sell. How about that? Wouldn’t it be awesome? I spoke at their conference and there were so many million dollar sellers just using online arbitrage. It’s still available. And again, 14 days, the only way you’re going to get 14 day free trial. So if you come through my link, um, it is an affiliate link. Uh, they do pay me. So I don’t want to mislead you in any way. Um, I would appreciate it, but I’d like to see you try the 14 days. I’ve had so many people that have joined, have so much success.

Stephen: [00:02:38] It’s very exciting to me and you know, quite humbling to me, um, that they trust me to recommend this group and I 100% recommend this group. I’ve seen the results. These are great people that will also teach you to fish. This isn’t just a, hey, here’s the list. You’re on your own. No, this is, hey, here’s why that wasn’t a good deal here. Hey, there’s another opportunity and get to join their groups. And it’s just a phenomenal group of people. Um, just great, great, uh, leaders in that group and these lists are phenomenal. So again, it’s amazing. freedom.com, forward slash momentum, I even arbitrage amazing freedom.com, forward slash momentum hyphen arbitrage. Use that get two weeks free. Try it. You don’t like it, drop out, but give it a shot if you want to add that to your business. Welcome back to the e-commerce momentum podcast.

Stephen: [00:03:27] This is episode four oh four chase climber. Um, very cool guy who has a lot of experience, runs an agency that really specializes more in Shopify than anything else. Um, great, great website, electric I. Dot. Io. Um, and he has a podcast, honest e-commerce. But what I appreciated from him is he cave and he gave two really powerful pieces of information. One is if you have a Shopify store, here are the recommended apps, the things that you can use to really scale up, right? And he says, you know, rather than trying to figure it out rather than he’s already got proof, he’s got experience with a hidden benefit if you use these, right. So, you know, it’s an, it’s almost unsolicited, right? So there’s real value. The other thing is he talks about as a content production system and you know, we produce content, so it’s definitely part of our process, but hearing it that way and then building it and then making it work for your business, that’s what’s going to drive your business and give some really good examples in this podcast of companies that have done it, brands that he’s worked with.

Stephen: [00:04:31] Um, and again, I’m, I’m stuck on his website that electric [inaudible] dot io the testimonials look up some of those companies, look at their websites. You can do that and these are successful brands that are out there selling on their own and on Amazon in this current market and having success. You can do it too. Let’s get into the podcast and we’ll come back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. I’m excited about today’s guest. Um, I’m excited because, uh, it’s the agency that he’s built. I think that that’s the way to approach it. The agency that he’s built has helped. Hopefully, I don’t know if it’s hundreds of clients, but a lot of clients. So I don’t know how many, um, build ecommerce businesses and it’s more brand. And I think, I think all of us who are selling, you know, we want to sell, we want our own brands.

Stephen: [00:05:18] Um, this is a company that’s helped others prove that it can be done and it’s still being done today. Is that fair? Before I introduce, is that correct? Still being done today. Alright, good. So the Amazon, uh, world ha probably has an effect, but it probably makes everybody better. So chase climate. Welcome chase. Thanks for having me. I’m super excited. Well, thank you for coming. Um, the name of your company is the agency is called electric. I, correct? Yes. We’re named after a Judas priest, so it really a electric I. Dot. Io. So make sure people know that that’s a, the the agency that you run. So let’s talk about that because my statement, you know, and even in our pre-conversation, one of the things we have are lots of Amazon sellers listen to this and they want to build a brand. That’s what they know, right?

Stephen: [00:06:03] So they, they probably started like you and I did sell books or thrift store items, build some success in like Ooh. And then they start maybe some wholesale and then they start their own private label and they probably Miss Miss, Miss. And then boom, something gets a little bit of legs. They have some success. They start building this item. Maybe they put a name on it, they maybe they get the trademark, maybe they start building something and then boom, somebody comes in and copies it. Identical, gets on their listing. They now spend most of their legal life fighting through that. And a lot of times never climb out of it, give up, move on to the next product. Um, that’s kind of a cycle that a lot of people see. So they want off, they want to do their own thing. But I think people get stuck in it. So walk us through like some of the brands that you’re working with. I mean, is that a similar story or is that a dissimilar story? And then can we learn from the dissimilar story?

Chase: [00:07:03] I think it is. I would say it’s not dissimilar. I feel it’s right in the middle and I’ll, I’ll kind of explain why the grass is always greener by the way. Let’s just talk about that. So I know of so many brands that started on Shopify and they’re like, we should have, you know, we should’ve been doing Amazon sooner and then we get so many people reaching out like, hey, we’re on Amazon, here’s our pain points. Can you help get us to Shopify? And you know, there are pros and cons to each of them. Uh, the easiest one to point out is with Shopify, you own your customer, but there’s no market to sell to. And then when you’re on Amazon, it’s the complete opposite. That’s like the differences. Those are the most polar opposite differences between them. And the way that that works out with building your brand is like pretty intense.

Chase: [00:07:51] So if you’re starting a new brand and you’re focused on finding product market fit, which I think should be the first thing you do. I liked that product market fit. I’ve not heard that once you’re, once you’re getting that product market fit, finding out that your product actually has traction with people. The best way to test that as Amazon cause there’s a lot of people looking for stuff on there. Uh, and Ebay as well. They’re, these are built in marketplaces with people that are searching for stuff. So I would say when you’re kind of vetting your products or like, I’m trying to think what should I sell? I have some ideas in this space. I would say build some test products and see if they sell on Amazon because that will translate over to sales on Shopify. But you’re going to have to do the leg work to bring people to your website.

Stephen: [00:08:35] Let’s pause there cause that’s a, that’s a good point. So, so get a proof of concept, right? Getting it out there. People are buying his, like you said, that’s where the audience is currently dead. That’s already established. Um, if you do good job with keywords and all that jazz, you get found, boom, they buy, at what point do you say, okay, this is a good enough proof of uh, and I’m ready to move off and create my own. Because as you described, you’re then responsible to bring traffic. And that’s not easy. Correct?

Chase: [00:09:05] It is. It is not easy. Uh, and especially these days I want to just like pop the bubble, the balloon or whatever it is. Facebook is expensive and hard. It is not magic anymore. Um, it is, it used to be, and that’s Kinda how when the agency started, that’s a lot of what we were doing was managed Facebook and Instagram advertising for direct to consumer clients. Um, but now it’s, it’s very competitive. It’s very expensive in the learning curve, um, is a little bit steeper. So, you know, bringing that traffic in is more expensive if you want to do a paid marketing route because Facebook’s now mature, so as Google, so those clicks are expensive. Um, and then the other way to do it is you got to focus on beautiful content, content that resonates with your audience. And some people don’t want to put in the work

Stephen: [00:09:55] that, uh, I mean, ultimately that’s the answer today, right? I mean, and it’s going to be where a lot of our conversation goes is you, I’m selling, uh, Steve’s water bottles. I need to have, you know, stories about camping and hiking or you know, sports or whatever. It’s something that people would use water bottles for to help bring those eyeballs so that audience are people that possibly would be interested in buying water bottles and then I can earn their trust. Right? I mean, that’s really where the work is today as opposed to, like you say, just run in a Facebook viral ad.

Chase: [00:10:27] Absolutely. I mean, obviously those tactics with Facebook and Google still work and you know, they should be kind of in your stack of marketing. But where the real money is, especially for young entrepreneurs who I’m assuming don’t have unlimited funds, uh, the way you can get traffic is by building, like creating awesome content. You can do it with your phone. I’ve seen people go viral with just a, uh, video they shot on their cell phone that led to thousands of sales.

Stephen: [00:10:58] W you know, I was asking this earlier as in the more, maybe that was a dumb question. Is it, you know, what point do you get off? Well, the answer depends, right? I mean that’s, that was pretty dumb, but, but it isn’t illogical to think that there’s an evening out of your clients. What percentage of sales on an Amazon versus their own, do you have any clue?

Chase: [00:11:19] Um, actually so we’ve got it. You know what, it depends. I feel like when you’re building a brand that has a specific product or specific product niche, uh, the pain points on Amazon are going to start to be like the fees. And once you have a name attached to your product, it goes from just being a water bottle to being Steve’s water bottle. You know what I mean? So once you, once you make that transition to actually having a brand, I feel like you should put a little bit more weight into moving, trying to move your customers to your own website because then you can do amazing retargeting. You can do sales, you can kind of what the narrative is with your brand and your customer. Um, but on the other side, we have some customers that use Shopify to sell other products, I. E. S shoes or, uh, we have one client that sells a pool and spa like filters and equipment and stuff like that. And he has, he has them on both and he loves them on both. And you know, he’s not really trying to go either way with it. Uh, he’s just going where the market is.

Stephen: [00:12:18] So can you give me an example of one of your clients where, uh, because what you’re saying is that, you know, once you own the client, then you get to remarket to them, right? You get to say, Hey, Steve, you bought a water bottle now. Hey Brian, you bought a water bottle before from Steve. Here’s our new ones. Or, here’s this, or we offer, also offer this. Right? That’s, that’s really the best part of that. How can you give us a success story of a company that, that did, that, that took from, they were just a, you know, trying to find a way, they had a website more than likely, but they didn’t take the content approach. They built out their content and then they started really developing their own customers. Can you walk us through an example?

Chase: [00:12:57] Uh, yeah. There’s actually a local brand here in Columbus. Uh, Hilo gummies. Uh, there they found a, a cool niche. Um, and then we actually, I don’t work with them. I’m just, I like their story and it’s been fun. All of them. Hilo gummies. Can you spell it for me? Uh, H I l O gummies. So the pain point they solved was, if you’ve ever been at the gym and you’ve ever dealt with pre-workout, you’re getting it everywhere. It’s going all over the place, um, creating your, your shake or whatnot. Uh, they just put that same stuff in a gummy so you can just pop the gummy and you’re ready to rock. You don’t have to deal with a water bottle. You’re ready to go. I’m kidding. Cheap. Yes. Yeah. So obviously amazing, amazing value already there. Uh, but they started with just like one gummy in one product and I already know their plan is to start adding other products to start to grow.

Chase: [00:13:45] Kind of just a full line of, uh, fitness, nutrition products that are all related to that particular thing. But they started with one product, right? And they found that product market fit and just, I already know what it’s gonna look like when they do their, when they start really targeting and reaching out with, you know, email marketing or Facebook ads or whatever it’s gonna be like, you know, if someone had bought that original gummy or like some of them that they have out right now and they’re like, hey, we just launched this new line of products that is obviously within the same, uh, area. Like you’d probably be interested to it in this product. And it’s so much easier to sell someone something if you’ve already sold them something before cause you’ve already won that trust they bought from you. They’ve got the product in the mail, they enjoyed it hopefully. And they’re like, yeah, well I liked the gummy. I’m going to like whatever the next product is that they put out.

Stephen: [00:14:38] Hmm. When I look at their site, there’s something that they do that I’ve not seen before is they have all their, Instagram is basically their content. So you’re talking about content, you know, you’ve got to drive content. It looks like their content is their, um, and it, but it looks like they’re individual blog posts. Uh, that’s a method I’ve never seen before. Are you familiar with that?

Chase: [00:14:59] Yeah. A lot of newer brands are, are focusing heavy on Instagram content and really trying to drive home, uh, the lifestyle approach. I know that the owners are pretty young and they are pretty vocal and you’ll see them all over the Instagram and all over their marketing. They’re like, yeah, we’re the guys that, you know, that are involved here. Like we want to help. I mean, I think the owners like the home page hero

Stephen: [00:15:22] it. What’s cool though is they don’t have to produce other content for their website because their, their Instagram is coming right in. Is it, does it have to be these giant blog posts to create that content? Is that your experience? Chase?

Chase: [00:15:37] Um, you know what, blog posts are definitely an SEO play and it works for some companies. Uh, for example, I’ve, uh, we’ve got a client that, uh, it’s like a food brand. So obviously recipes are easy for them. It’s a great content strategy and people are actually looking for that. So that’s an easy SEO play. But when you start talking about something a little more weird, say like shoes, like it’s kinda hard to SEO around shoes. You know, you can, you can do some top 10 lists or whatnot. Um, but for that, you know, we were pushing them in the direction of doing shoe reviews and having really amazing lifestyle content shot cause they, you know, they’re in Manhattan, it’s a beautiful city. Uh, so I think content shouldn’t be limited to like blogs or videos or podcasts. Even. Podcasts are amazing. I’ve seen some direct to consumer brands launch podcasts, which are, it’s a wild thing to consider.

Chase: [00:16:32] but to go back to your specific question, I think that when you’re first starting out and they’re definitely a younger brand and I don’t want to say like a baby brand or anything like that,

Chase: [00:16:43] I think that what I like about their strategy is they picked one channel, I e. Instagram and they are doing it very well and they’re building that system and that process when they’re in their business, I find a lot of, uh, people get, they make a list of, I’ve got to do SEO and I’ve got to do Google ads and I’ve got to do a Instagram and I’ve got to do youtube and I’ve got to do a podcast. And they tried to do them all at once and they all fail. I like, I like people picking one, figuring out the system and the process and then evolving over time to build out that bigger marketing stack.

Stephen: [00:17:17] It’s it, I mean, I think that’s very smart, right? To master it, right. Get it. And especially the process cause I think that’s when I look at ours, our businesses, we have lots of different businesses going on here. Processes where we fail or succeed at least in our world. How about in the worlds that you’re seeing out there?

Chase: [00:17:35] Yeah, I think that uh, the brands that are doing well that we work with, you know, we come into contact with, they have like a content production system like baked into their business somehow. Um, just because with brands content and creating that connection and a reason to talk to your customer that isn’t trying to sell them another thing and just give value to your customer, that’s kind of where that content comes into plays. You gotta be creative with it and think about what value you can give them. Uh, but once you figure it out and figure that out, it’s, it’s amazing that you can keep reaching out, keep contacting them and they love to hear from you.

Stephen: [00:18:17] I think. I think that phrase content production system, um, will resonate with a lot of people. Can we walk through what you would suggest to a client, uh, of a simple content production system that where it’s, you know, somebody listening right now, they’re one person operation or like, okay guys, Jason, Steve, this is great, but you know, I don’t even know where to start. Can we walk through a simple version of what you would call a content production system? I think it’s a great term.

Chase: [00:18:42] Yeah. Let’s start with, let’s start with your hypothetical water bottle company. Right? It’s a very impressive, by the way, I’m just telling. Yeah, yeah. I know you’re going to write this down and make millions off this. Oh yeah. So what I would do is, you already mentioned that this is an outdoor water bottle brand. This isn’t like a in the gym brand. This is like, you know, we’re camping. This isn’t, you know, I’m assuming it’s stainless steel. It can fall off a mountain would be fine. Um, so the demo you’re going after, the area is outdoors. Uh, it’s camping. So you come up with the idea of starting to write blogs around camping to, you know, try to work on a little bit of SEO. Uh, so you are creating these amazing blogs about camping, right? So I would say first there, if you want to do an actual system, if you’re, you don’t have the budget, I would say you need to sit down and write a blog a week yourself.

Chase: [00:19:27] Like that’s just get that in your habit. Uh, but if you have a little bit more of a budget and maybe you want to hire a writer to help you produce a blog a week, um, caveat on hiring writers, make sure they’re good, make sure it’s English. Uh, and if you are want to save some money, you can hire a blog of researcher that may be at a cheaper price point, maybe a in a, uh, you know, developing country where you can get a writers for a little bit cheaper. But then you are also going to have to hire an editor to turn it into actual American English. Uh, I’ve seen some people do that, so that’s a pretty good tip there. They’ll save you a little bit of money on your blog writing or if you don’t want to deal with that many people just hire one good writer.

Stephen: [00:20:08] Okay. So, and that’s a good tool. Like you’re saying, so somebody who might be really good at research, but like you say, they have the grammar issues or you know, the nuances that we have here. But a good editor can clean it up and a good editor editing something that’s already written is not that expensive way down or way different than producing content. Okay. All right, good. Yeah, if you’re talking about writing

Chase: [00:20:28] 1500 unique words on a good topic, it’s going to take a good eight, 10 hours, uh, but editing that when it’s done, it’s going to take one hour.

Stephen: [00:20:36] Okay. So 1500 words would be the recommended size you’d say. And uh, you think editing is about one hour? I liked that. All right, cool. Say

Chase: [00:20:44] 1500 is a made up number. It’s, but it’s, it’s been going around for a while, I think. Yeah. It needs to be long enough to get the point across and Kinda hit on your keywords for SEO. But I wouldn’t tie it to like a arbitrary number. It needs to just be good content because Google rewards good content over page length. It’s, it definitely, it tracks the time on page that people are actually reading and engaging with your content. So let’s just go back to that. If you use the writer that was, you know, delivering subpar grammar, I would read the first paragraph be like I can’t even understand this and I’d bounce. But if I’m reading it and it and it makes sense and it’s flowing well cause there’s a great editor, I’m like Oh this is good and I’m going to read the whole article and that’s signal is going back to Google and be like, oh that guy spent three minutes on this page.

Chase: [00:21:30] That page must actually have good content and it’s going to help you come up in the rankings when, when that content, so my water bottle example, it’s an outdoor water bottle, is that the content I produce doesn’t have to be about water bottles. It has to be about the people that I’m trying to sell to. Correct? Yeah. Yeah. Parents trying, right. Okay. A hundred articles a year about water bottles or, or whatever. Number two, you, do you recommend that, I mean, do we tie current topics and address them and try to bring them into the conversation to keep current? Does that help or hurt? I think it goes back to what your brand values are and where you want to be in that stance. Um, I don’t think it could hurt much. Uh, it is, depends on what you, what kind of topics you want to talk about.

Chase: [00:22:25] Uh, but let’s go back to this, this, this, building, this system. So say we’ve got, we’re, we’re writing a blog a week. That’s fantastic. I think that’s the minimum anyone should be doing for content production. Uh, but then let’s take it a step further. You’re like, all right, this is, I can see my traffic’s increasing a little bit. This is cool. So let’s take all these blogs that we already have written, turn them into scripts and turn them into a video and put that video on youtube. So now you’ve got the same content, you’re refactoring it, and now you’ve got a video and that system’s obviously going to take a bit of time to work the kinks out. But once you turn that one, give me an example there. So I wrote this great piece about tents. I don’t know. Um, yeah, 10 reviews. Okay. So now am I putting on Youtube video?

Chase: [00:23:08] It makes better sense than just hearing my podcast over with a still image. I’m literally out there doing the physical reviews. Is that what it takes or what happens? I think it’s hit review as an expensive example. Okay. Uh, but if we can find a cheaper example, uh, yeah, just turn it into, into a youtube video. Cause people like to consume content in different ways. Uh, youtube is the second or third biggest search engine on the Internet right now. So you’d be doing well to repurpose your content over there. You’ve already pretty much written a script, so why not make a video out of it? But I am going somewhere with this. Okay. Uh, so once, once you kind of have that system built, you’re going to start bringing in some traffic from youtube. You’re bringing in traffic from Google. Um, hopefully you’ve started making some sales here and you are building up your email list.

Chase: [00:23:56] I think that’s the number one thing people aren’t doing these days for some reason is the power of email. It’s like powering through. It’s like 30% of sales for our, our customers across the board is email. So having a good reason to reach back out to your customers with your email is this content you’ve now created. So every week you’re producing a blog. Every week you’re producing a video and then you can email them and you’re not even asking for a sale. You’re like, hey, we wrote a blog on the best tent, like the top 10 tents for this particular environment. And there’s also the video you can watch and all your customers are gonna be like, well that’s awesome cause I, I’m actually into that stuff. I’m actually gonna read it and now you’re top of mind for them. So when they break their water bottle or they leave it behind at their last campsite, they’re like, oh yeah, these guys are awesome. They’re sharing all this content with me. I want to buy from them again.

Stephen: [00:24:45] I’m gonna use an example, um, one that I think you guys have this, a client of yours. It’s called Guitar Grip. Um, I’m at their website and I go into their blog and it, they, it’s phenomenal. I mean a, their product’s phenomenal. It’s very cool. But the way they present it, it’s, there’s value. Every single thing about it is adding value to it. Uh, to me. So if you go to guitar grip.com, um, and choose blogs and start looking through there. So what I love about this, um, and I’m assuming this has been coached to them, they have the number of minutes read. So here are the top five reasons to mount your guitar with a guitar hanger. And then it tells you it’s a three minute read. I think that’s a pro tip right there that I can give three minutes of anything chase, I mean, to do anything right. It’s not like it’s 30 minutes. I’m not getting sucked into, you know, Warren piece. This is three minutes. Um, they subjects look very valuable. You know, if you’re into this, I can see the uh, relationship and the value, but it’s really simple. I mean it’s a really simple, it’s a three minute read. It’s a pretty simple thing that has an effect. That’s what you’re telling me.

Chase: [00:25:50] Yeah. So say I’m on that email list and they’re like, we, we pushed out this content this week. Here’s, here’s the content is top five reasons to mount your guitar with a guitar hanger. Say That I didn’t purchase from them, but I signed up. I’m on the list for some reason or another because of the content. And then this is the piece of content that pushes me over the edge that makes me wanna buy. When you’re building out a funnel for a direct to consumer brand, the value that email is like worth its weight in gold because you’ll get people to supply their email way before they actually purchase from you. And then you create those multiple touch points over time. Just giving them value. They will eventually convert

Stephen: [00:26:35] it. Uh, it blows my mind. I’m assuming this stuff gets shared. Uh, is this also the best practice then to take the same content and put it out on Instagram? [inaudible]

Chase: [00:26:44] if it makes sense. Yeah. I mean if you’re putting in the work and making some awesome content, repurpose it everywhere. Why reinvent the wheel?

Stephen: [00:26:51] So back to the example about re-purposing this, let’s just use guitar grip for example here, these uh, these blog posts to put them on youtube. What would be your recommended approach?

Chase: [00:27:04] Um, I actually interviewed um, an SEO expert the other day on our podcast and I was talking to him about it and things we like kind of went down this rabbit hole about like production value and, and all sorts of stuff. He was like, as long as you have a rough script, he’s like, whip out your phone and record it because going from zero to one and just getting the content made and then getting it on Youtube is the biggest struggle out of all of it. He’s like, you can up the value over time. You can up the scripts over time. You can increase the production quality, but just going from zero to one and getting a video on the Internet is the hardest thing.

Stephen: [00:27:39] So people aren’t necessarily looking for a high polished, they’re looking for high quality and that’s what your point. Okay. I love it. And so

Chase: [00:27:46] I think high polished and high quality are less important as a fact of just giving value in answering questions and creating content. Um, I think just getting into the mindset of creating content for your brand is a bigger struggle for some of these brands. Cause they start thinking about, well, I need to hire a photographer and I need to buy this $4,000 camera and then we need a backdrop. And I’m like, no, pull out your iPhone, go to a cool location in your backyard and snap some photos. Make a video. Like creating content is that easy these days

Stephen: [00:28:18] as I think about like launching this brand and building this process. So again, I’m going to let me go through and make sure the notes that I took, I want to make sure that I got this right. So, um, write blogs. Um, and we’re used to camping as an example, right? So one way to do it is, you know, do it yourself or hire out. If you hire out, make sure they’re a good writer. If not, get a blog researcher, then get an editor way more, uh, or way less expensive and you get to different points of view there. By the way, I think that’s another cool thing. Should be weekly, um, script out that blog post, repurpose it, uh, probably on medium and all the different things, but also on youtube. Don’t Miss Youtube, very simple. Um, because, and I’m assuming that the full article can be on or maybe that maybe that’s common sense, right? You’re going to be like dusty. So if I’m writing this guitar grip and I have this whole thing about, you know, proper way to store guitar, I only have to address it a little bit in the youtube video and then refer them back to that other blog posts. Correct?

Chase: [00:29:14] Absolutely. Okay. And that, and you just start driving the traffic back to your website. And people are, once they get there, once they’re done with that content, you know, and maybe they start browsing around and looking at products that they like, uh, maybe they get all the way to adding, you know, the instead of the water bottle, this time they’re adding the core that we have, you know, the premium core to the cart. Um, and then life happens, but you can retarget them over time with some ads and eventually convert.

Chase: [00:29:42] build out an email list. So again, all these things should be building out this email list because that’s the permission list to buy. That’s usually what I find most of my buying email list, email list. If you, if you own your website direct, like your Shopify, Magento, what have you, is you, if you own the website and you actually can own this customer relationships, the email list is so powerful because you can use it for a reaching out with email blast B. The power of email automation these days can create very specific touch points within that customer’s journey that are about exactly them and what they’ve been up to either. On your website or where they’re at in their buying cycle. Uh, and those higher matched marketing messages get higher rates of return. So say you know their birthday and he sent him a birthday email.

Chase: [00:30:28] Like there’s a really simple example, but if you send someone an email that just says like 10 types of tents, right? That’s while valuable content. It’s pretty generic. But if it says happy birthday Steve, which one do you think is going to get opened? Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Happy Weight. So many new, it was my birthday. What, who? Yeah. That’s cool. So, and then you give them a birthday discount, you know what I mean? Then personalization really matters. Yeah. So just the power of email automation is wild these days. But then you can also take that email list and repurpose it to do more targeted advertising through Facebook and Google. Uh, you know, the email is pretty universally powerful. Does email work for like, you know, for me to get it to my friends, cause one of the cool things like an Instagram or even Facebook was getting it shared, right?

Chase: [00:31:18] So if I, if, if I was selling something and I got you to share it, that was huge for me because now all of a sudden I’m reaching you. It’s almost like an endorsement, right? Chase endorsed. Yes. Because he shared it. Does it, is there a way to manage that with email too? Um, I’ve seen some people put a call to action in their emails. They’re like, hey, if you think this is valuable, share it with your friend. But I think that actually, so that’s probably a way to think about how to architect your content strategy is what content in my niece would I share with my friend. Oh, interesting. And that should be the driving factor of whether or not the content is good or not is, is a, I mean, you’re building an Avatar for your customer, right? I mean, you know how, uh, how do you build that Avatar?

Chase: [00:32:06] Because it’s like I, I know who I think my customers and I’m not sure that that’s correct. I mean, do, are there ways that you’ve seen out there to, to get certainty of your Avatar? Yeah. It’s real easy. Ask Your customer. So, so a poll or some kind of contest or something like that. I mean you can do it through email, quick surveys, uh, you know, how often have you been on a website and something pops up in the corners like, Hey, can I ask you a quick question? You know, it’s a robot, but you know, it’s two, two or three simple questions. Like those types of polling can get actual real data out of your customers. And if you start to get in the habit of creating that content, your customers will ask you for stuff. It’s kind of cool.

Stephen: [00:32:45] Yeah, there’s a, I always tell this story as a friend of mine, Dan Miller, and he always says, Steve, if three people ask me the same question, there’s a business because that, that means that there’s a need in the market for somebody to fulfill. And he likes to be that person. So if you’re doing the same thing, if you’re getting customers asking you, hey, could you add on a a camp stove? I’m bad example of my water bottle, but it came stove with it. Or a bike grip, a bike holder, cup holder. Um, but we need one. Do you know, can you recommend one? Whoa. Maybe we should be selling those products, right?

Chase: [00:33:17] Oh yeah. So my, a friend of mine, uh, another agency owner down in Atlanta, Georgia, Kelly, she runs a agency down there called the tap room. Um, and she started for fun, a, a little, just a peril business, uh, kinda based on her developer jokes cause she’s got a pretty good Twitter following of developer jokes. But she says people now email reply to her after purchasing something and they’re like, hey, you should put this tweet of yours on a Mug so I can buy it for my husband. Or like people are just straight up giving her her product research and she’s just like, okay, cool. And she turns it into a product like you, people are very open and customers will be very open and they’re like, they’ll tell you exactly what to do.

Stephen: [00:33:57] Is that because you created an environment where it makes sense for your customers to be able to communicate with you? Is that, is that, and if so, what, what methods would be good for doing that?

Chase: [00:34:10] So I think that, um, the way that you do that is by being kind of personal, by producing that content, kind of putting a face to the brand per se. Um, and just being genuinely human. People want to buy from actual people. Uh, so when you write your emails and you find that pros, that is your brand’s voice. And I always tell people to send your email from the CEO or the owner or the founder and let people reply directly to it and say, instead of being info@electricguy.com, you know, it’s going to come fromChase@electrichigh.io like that. That’s the way you want to do it. And just be genuine about it. And then people will reply and actually say, you know, give advice or ask questions.

Stephen: [00:34:55] So I’m basically saying, hey, you’re important to me and I really want to hear everything. How important is it then and B for that CEO to be doing some of those blog posts or at least some of those videos rather than having the team do everything?

Chase: [00:35:10] Well, that’s just the part about scaling of business is yeah. At some point the CEO has to focus on the things that they’re uniquely qualified for. The or the founder. I know a lot of founders and like apparel space is like what they’re really good at is building the product and coming up with unique and creative ideas there and they eventually have to kind of give those to other people on the team. I think though, if you’re just starting out, uh, you are doing yourself a disservice because no one is going to sell your business better than you.

Stephen: [00:35:37] Hm. Um, now electric, it is your agency and you’ve got some pretty good sized companies here that you’re working with. Can you take, kick us through an example of one of these companies that was super small that just, that’s probably somebody who’s listening right now, that type of a company and what they’ve been able to get to in today’s marketplace?

Chase: [00:36:00] Absolutely. I think that if you’re just starting out, one of the bigger things that you’re going to be dealing with is kind of analysis paralysis of all the options that are out there. Um, and you know, I’m going to probably, uh, get rid of some business here. I know, I, I don’t hire me if you’re just starting out as I’m going to be honest, because you need to learn. It’s kind of the INS and outs of the platform. If you want to move to Shopify and kind of build a brand there, you need to learn the ins and outs of your platform yourself and for, for many reasons, one, you need to be able to speak to people down the line when you’re hiring them out in a way that, uh, it makes sense. You know, you gotta be educated about the platform a bit.

Chase: [00:36:44] Uh, so you can, you know, steer the growth of your business and the way you want it to go by speaking in the technical terms that make sense to the platform. Um, I think also just as far as where I’m at with the agency and our career, we’re a little more expensive and I feel like the budget that you would have to use for that should be focused elsewhere. You can get, you can get online with Shopify and I can recommend a bunch of good apps and a bunch of good themes after this, but you can get online yourself by following some youtube videos and just by putting in the work, I think when people are looking for other people to make them rich, they have the bad, that’s of just a bad outlook. You’ve got to put in the work

Stephen: [00:37:24] and if you put in the work and you make the mistakes, right, I guess you can, you can mitigate or minimize, minimize their mistakes by putting in that time. Right? Like you’re saying, watch watching youtube and you’re gonna find people say, Hey, I did this wrong, don’t do it this way, blah, blah, blah. If you could find a good source, a trusted source that you can do that. You’re saying you can do the work, get far enough along, then you can afford to scale up with another, with a, with a company like yours. Correct.

Chase: [00:37:51] Absolutely. So I would say that there are a bunch of really good premium themes out there in the Shopify environment. There’s a bunch of apps that work to solve for a lot of stuff. People are focused more on s they want to scale faster than they can, but they don’t have like the systems in place to actually scale. Um, and I think that what, what is, what they need to do is they just need to get their products onto the site. They need to get it turned on and then they need to realize that, hey, there is no market yet because I have no content because, and there’s no reason for anyone to come to my site. You got to figure out the marketing [inaudible]

Stephen: [00:38:30] well, I mean I’m sitting here thinking about that as I’m thinking of that small brand coming up. Right? So they do put up the put in the work, learn how to do it, get the store open, right? Which is really not hard anymore, especially on Shopify. And you’re going to give us, you promise me you’re going to give us the tools and I think he’s going to take away. You know, it’s funny, everybody knows at the end of the show I always ask him, how do you get past the point of stock? You’re going to give us the tools that will get you past the point of stuff that you’re gonna recommend that you’ve seen work where that excuse is gone. So we’re going to take away that excuse. So that’s going to be cool. But let’s say I do all that, right? I listened to you. I get the thing done, I get it set up and I’m getting it rocking is the next place though to put in the energy and effort rather than running ads because I’m so worried about not selling, developing this content production system. And is that really the big advice that, is that going to be the takeaway that anybody listening here because you’re going to help us get created, get this production system in place, put in the time there next. My correct. [inaudible]

Chase: [00:39:29] yeah. If you do that now and instill a production of instilled this content mentality within your business, you’re going to succeed

Stephen: [00:39:40] period. So if I follow your advice, I mean there are no guarantees in life. If I followed your advice and get the tools and get the right site set up, then I jump and into, um, into this next realm, which is content production put in my time. Well, how long does it take to get traction when you’re putting out good content that’s relevant to the crowd I’m supposed to sell to?

Chase: [00:40:06] Did he get a Mercedes? Is that a weird question? No, here’s the honest answer. It’s going to take longer than you want. Just keep doing it. I’m like, unless you come to the table with some, you know, you have 50,000 Twitter followers for some reason, or you’re in a popular band, you know, there’s other ways to kind of get your market a little bit kickstarted. But if you’re kind of just an average entrepreneur and you don’t have, you know, a big cloud like that to lean on, it’s just going to take some hard work and over time it will, it will pay off.

Stephen: [00:40:37] Hmm Dude. Um, I’m excited about, you know, what, what you’re describing because you’re giving us real life examples, uh, in your, you know, and again, he’s got a lot of testimonials out there. Go look at these sites and then go check out their websites. They’re phenomenal. These are companies that some of these people used to only sell on Amazon. And I looked at some of them. There are, it seems like most of them are still selling on Amazon, but some of these companies have been able to create a standalone website brand. Um, and you know, is it fair to say they’re making money of their, or the majority of their business is, is e-commerce now?

Chase: [00:41:13] Absolutely. Yeah. I think that, um, we talked about this in the pre show I think, but, uh,

Chase: [00:41:21] once you kind of decide to make the leap over to building up your own, you know, ecommerce store outside of the, the Amazon platform, you should probably have a good idea of that product’s going to be. And then it’s the challenge there is, okay, what’s the brand going to be around this product? It’s more than just being a product. It’s gotta be, it’s gotta be a brand and then then it goes into the content stuff. Um, that’s kind of the challenge of, cause if you just, if you just put it on, on Shopify, it’s not gonna sell anything. You gotta like have a story and you’ve got to have a reason behind it and you’ve got to have a reason for someone to come to the site. Is that why most people give up? Oh, I absolutely. This content production system that we’re talking about, as simple as I made it sound, it took us a year to make it work for our agency nor experts. Apparently a year. A full year. Yeah. I mean it’s, it’s a lot of work. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s essentially a bigger SEO play. You know how people say SEO takes months to see traction. Yeah. That’s just to get people to your web, your website. That’s the top end of the funnel. You’re talking about getting people from the top all the way down to that purchase. Like that’s a, that’s another journey in and of itself.

Stephen: [00:42:36] Hmm. One year if I, okay, so back to his is I want people to walk away from this with some value. If we follow, again, your advice, they’re sitting here saying, I’ve been trying, I’ve been stuck. I can’t get past this. I want to do it. Chase up and trying to do it again. You’re going to give us the tips. We’re going to do this. We get the site up and running. We got the apps and all that junk. Now I put my head down for a year and I built, assuming I already have a product, right? And I know that there’s a market because I’ve already tested on Amazon, it’s already sold and I’m having some success, but I want a lot of success. Okay. Now for a year, 52 weeks a year, I’m putting out relevant content for the audience that are going to be my buyers. If I do that for a year, at the end of that, I have chance to have a brand. Is that fair? Absolutely.

Chase: [00:43:22] And I, I feel like at the end of that year, you’re going to know exactly what you need to do to make that business work. You’re going to, you’re going to have so much experience in there and I want to talk about why you should believe my strategy on content and just, and give you an outside opinion on it. Have you ever heard of the brand outdoor voices? I have not. Okay. They’re, they’re a direct consumer brand. I think they even went through like some venture funding. Uh, but it’s just apparel for rec, recreation, you know, technical apparel. Um, they invested so hard in content that they built a media site called the recreational list. Really? Yeah.

Stephen: [00:44:06] Oh Wow. Look at this. I’m looking at their stuff. Um, wow. So tell me what that’s done for them. The wreck. I can see it and let me click on it. Let me see what it is. But what, what’s that done for them? I think just the,

Chase: [00:44:21] the, the power of, they’re essentially building a website that’s just all content all the time to bring people in and get them familiar with the brand. And then it’s free advertising for actual products.

Stephen: [00:44:32] It looks like they don’t just have their products on here. They have other products on here too.

Chase: [00:44:37] Possibly. I mean, that’s a fun way to do it. Uh, also that’s a good, that’s a good thing to talk about right there is you don’t have any competition. Once you start building a brand, uh, you’d be so you, you’d be surprised at how nice people are and how open they will be with giving you advice.

Stephen: [00:44:54] And then again, that just helps you on product research. I had a gentleman I interviewed, I remember he was into barbecuing and he would do these competitions, that level, that high level barbecue. And he would go there and you’d find out the pain points. He’d fix it, bring it to them, they’d test it. And they’d be like, oh my God, this is the best thing ever. They’d all buy it. And then he knew he had a product market. And then he’d be like, what other pain points to have choice? What else? What else is it great, anything. And boom, he had magic. It’s kind of what you’re describing. All of a sudden they were honest with him cause he had earned our trust and all of a sudden they heard his product research. So by putting in, so the recreational, you said, how long did it take them to build this out?

Chase: [00:45:32] Um, well they had funding and it came out, I’d say six months or so, but it was, it was definitely, it’s just this giant content play for outdoor voices.

Stephen: [00:45:44] Does the video, you said, do, uh, do photos, uh, count towards content, um, building, I mean, are they valuable? Especially in today’s marketplace.

Chase: [00:45:55] Yes, they’re valuable, but I don’t think you’d see as much of a return through like email if you’re like, here’s a lookbook that I created. Maybe if your target is a woman demographic, uh, but those holders are going to do great on Instagram.

Stephen: [00:46:10] Okay. And then bring that content in. And again, that one site, um, uh, which one was it that was, uh, use El Hilo, the Hilo gummies, Hilo H. I l o gummies. Um, they do a great job of their content is Instagram. I mean, but it looks like their blog posts. I mean it’s so phenomenal. I’ve never seen that. It must be a cool app. Hopefully it’s going to be one of these apps that you tell us about, um, to put on this site. Okay. I feel really good about where we’re at. I feel like this is a plan that if somebody can put in place, but what I’m asking you for, um, and, and, and I will ask you for contact information before then, but, but I want to ask for is to get people past that point of stuck. And I think that place that they’re going to get stuck is creating this website because it seems overwhelming chase.

Stephen: [00:46:55] It just doesn’t seem so hard to even create a Shopify cause there’s so many things you have to be concerned with, but you’re going to give us the tools to do that, correct? Yes. All right. First, well now before you do that, I want to get your contact. I want your contact, so I want to make sure that if somebody wants to follow you, so electric I uie. Dot. Io is their website. Um, tons of blog posts. Um, and you wrote most of them. I see. Um, tons of blog posts about all this different stuff. It’s a Shopify, but not only Shopify, right? You’ve got some Magento’s you have some other stuff out there too.

Chase: [00:47:26] Well, can I be honest with you? [inaudible] you that system I was talking about of hiring a researcher and an editor. No, no. I mean it’s guys, you think about it, I’m running a company and we’re producing three pieces of content a week. I’m not doing all of it. That’s a lot of work. This was, yeah, I, you, I had to build a system within my business because if, if that’s all I had to do, that’d be great. But unfortunately that’s not how I have to do. And I mean we’re, where did you find your writer or your researcher? I’m the researcher I actually found on upwork, but, um, he worked at a company, the same company that our VA works at.

Stephen: [00:48:07] And so when, when you’re looking for a Reese, I mean, how expensive is a researcher because they’re basically, are you leading them towards the articles that you want? I mean, or do you give them parameters saying, hey, oh, I guess you have to, to, uh, um, you know, Steve’s water bottles, I’d like to, things related because this is a camping and outdoors kind of thing. That’s the parameter.

Chase: [00:48:25] Yeah. At the beginning I was coming up with all the ideas. Um, but you know, we’ve been doing it for months now and he, he comes up with ideas too. He’s like, Hey, I think this one would work and it’d be fun to research. So I’m like, yeah, that sounds great.

Stephen: [00:48:38] Thanks for, oh, that’s a good idea. So you have them that you vet them. So he’ll be like, hey, this is the one, these are the five that I want to do. And you’d be like, yes, yes you have now. Yes. Right. Yeah. But I always explain the line. Oh, okay. And so then you don’t have this explained as often, right. That that points the funnel down. Okay. That makes sense. I think I, so

Chase: [00:48:56] just to give some tips on hiring a VA or a writer or anyone off upwork for the first time, uh, you’re, if you, if it’s your first time, you’re going to have a bad time and I’ll tell you why. It’s because you didn’t explain what you wanted properly. It comes down to being very, very vocal and over explain what you want because people can’t read minds. And especially when you’re talking over the Internet and especially when there might be a slight language barrier.

Stephen: [00:49:22] Okay. All right. I think that that is a fair advice. Um, over, over, over explain. Yeah. Cause I, I’m a guy, my communication skills are a little limited, definitely. All right. So, uh, best way to get in touch with you if somebody wants to follow up on this.

Chase: [00:49:39] Sure. It’s just chase at electric I. Dot. Io. I’m also gonna plug our podcast if you want to hear me rant more a, it’s honest e-commerce on all the popular podcasting platforms.

Stephen: [00:49:51] I think it’s a, it, it’s a great podcast and I think, um, like you say, you’re, you’re touching on a lot of different stuff. You’re not just Amazon, you’re not just Ebay, you’re not just Shopify, you’re on all the different topics. Um, and I think, um, I think it’s very, uh, important of conversation. So very cool. Very, very cool. All right, so I’m ready for this checklist. I’m ready and I’m gonna put this link in that into podcast, but I’m ready for this checklist. The things that we need to start [inaudible] are we saying Shopify or just a wordpress? Uh, well, I’m, I’m going go with Shopify.

Chase: [00:50:28] Shopify, it’s all we do. And because I believe that Shopify is probably, if you want to build a directory cause they were brand, it’s the best avenue for you to do that these days. Okay.

Stephen: [00:50:37] All right? So this is, these are the tools that, uh, Chase’s recommending based on experience period. And this is what you need to have in place. Um, and you know, how quickly could somebody have a site up and running?

Chase: [00:50:51] You can have a site up and running and you could learn how to do it yourself in less than a day.

Chase: [00:50:58] Okay. First, first things first. You can do all of this without spending any more money than signing up for Shopify. You don’t need any apps, you don’t need a fancy theme. What you need is good content. So that’s first things. The first is you could literally go learn how to set up a Shopify store on youtube, follow some awesome tutorials and build out a Shopify store yourself. And use the basic theme that comes with every install called debut. I’ve seen stores doing 10 figures on debut. So non-important, yeah. What’s important is making sure you have that product market fit in the messaging on your site and the content on your site resonates with your customer.

Stephen: [00:51:41] And again, who’s, uh, who’s a good example you want us to go to that, you know, as a Shopify store.

Chase: [00:51:47] Oh, I mean 50% of the Internet with like when it comes to an actual brand is a Shopify store. Um, but there’s no limitations on the designs on Shopify stores. I just want to tell you that at the beginning your design doesn’t really matter. It’s all about your product market fit and how you’re marketing. Okay. But say let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s get on from that. Like let’s go past that. You build out a store, um, you know you have product market fit and you have a little bit of a budget to invest. So I’ll talk about the apps and this is probably where a lot of people have that analysis paralysis of like what app do I use? Cause they all say they’re going to work and they’re the best thing since sliced bread. Yeah. All right. So I’ll tell you the tech stack that we like to use it electric guy.

Chase: [00:52:27] So this is the, this is the stack that we like to use for all of our clients that come in. And where we come in usually is people are either heading towards that million dollar mark or passing it, uh, and they want us to come in and help design and build out the systems and kind of use our tech stack to really optimize and help them grow. So these are the things we literally use. And you know, there’s no secret sauce here. Uh, so first things first for email marketing and for that automation stuff I was talking about, we are huge, huge, huge fans of an app called Klaviyo. Spell that for me. K. L a. V. I. Y. O. Now here’s the thing. People are going to like, this one’s more expensive than MailChimp. Yeah, that’s that. You’re going to be there stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime on that one. The automations pay for themselves.

Stephen: [00:53:16] Okay. And again, if this is for people who are getting stuck, stop getting stuck, stop making decisions, here’s the decisions you want to push past

Chase: [00:53:26] it. He’s giving you his experience to push past it. Yeah. Um, so for, for email marketing, that’s the one that we like to use. Say if you’re building a subscription business that’s not like a out of the box feature of Shopify use recharge, that’s the one that we like to use. It’s very robust. And if there is a weird thing you need, you have open API access to kind of get in there and solve for that.

Chase: [00:53:51] So something that isn’t out of the box on Shopify is, uh, like Jason LD. So like sending back some metadata to Google to kind of like show your stock levels, uh, and your reviews. Some review apps include that. So the one, one of the re in the built in review app with Shopify, we’re not a huge fan of, uh, but we do like judge.me, uh, we also like yacht Po. I don’t know if I’m saying that right. No one ever does. Uh, but there’s, there’s two solutions there. Figure out which ones you like better, uh, for kind of using reviews when once you get to that state. Uh, and reviews are very powerful. That social proof is super powerful. So once you kind of get those first, you know, sales under your belt, that’s it. That’s a good app to start to look into to build up that social proof on your product.

Chase: [00:54:39] Um, another thing is all these apps in the ecosystem with Shopify, it’s, there’s so many apps because Shopify focuses on what they do at the core, which is sell products on a, like a platform. So they allow the app ecosystem to solve for specifics. Um, so once you build your site, you’re gonna realize that there a lot of features you see on other sites that aren’t included in years out of the box. Um, one of those features which are, is actually really going to help you as you want to get like a good filtering system and a good searching, like a smart search. You’ve never been on a website, you type in red and it’s like red shirt, red blouse, red pant that you see, it automatically pops up. Those actually help with conversion rates, especially on mobile. Nobody wants to browse through a bunch of stuff on mobile, they just want to type it in. People are lazy, they want to get there fast. So this smart search solutions really work. Uh, one that we like to use is a, there’s product filter in search is a good one and another one’s called search and eyes.

Chase: [00:55:43] So that’s definitely gonna help you with like some conversion issues on, on mobile. Um, uh, I’ve got a few more here. Uh, so, uh, like real rewards programs and loyalty programs. Uh, there’s two that we like to use. A one’s called smile.io. So that’ll help you with like a, you know, like a points based system for loyalty or awards after a certain, a certain, uh, you know, sale or whatnot. Uh, so that’s cool to kind of help build more touch points with your customer, which are always important, important, but also like give them a reason to kind of be on your list and keep them, stick around and keep buying stuff. Uh, you know, give them rewards. Love it. All right. And you know, as I sit and I think listening to

Stephen: [00:56:24] this, I mean, this is a legit business, all these things that you’re describing, is that, is that what you would say? I mean, I’m going to cut you off, sorry, but is that what you would say is the difference between, you know, the average site and the outliers, this stuff here, paying attention to this stuff?

Chase: [00:56:41] I think the difference between the average site in the outliers is putting in the work and you’re going to tell me it’s really good content again. Right? Yeah. It’s that, and I mean, oftentimes people end up with a stack that’s very similar to this. And Hey, I’m telling you, these are the ones I like. You might have one that you liked better and that’s fine. As long as it solves the problem that you have within your business and it works for your customer, that’s all that matters. Don’t go change your tech stack. If you already have all this built and it’s working, don’t go change anything unless you’re not using Klaviyo. I’d highly recommend using that one. All right. Uh, is there any more? Uh, just it’s Kinda like, it’s Kinda like Klaviyo. Um, nowadays people are, especially with Shopify, you can check out of your email, you use your cell phone.

Chase: [00:57:26] Uh, and now there’s people building automation platforms that are texting based. So we’ve used, we’ve used a few and the two that we like, there’s one called postscript and then there’s another one called SMS bump, SMS bump. I just tried it. Here’s the things, my bump. Yeah. Here’s the thing. Now you’ve got a list of these 12 awesome apps, right? I don’t want you to use them until you have sales because they’re expensive. They all, they all cost money and you need to slowly introduce them into your business and understand them. And you know, some of them do require some systems around them. Are they given an order? What you put, uh,

Stephen: [00:58:04] importance? I mean, are you saying the first place you want to start, the first place to add into your business is email marketing?

Chase: [00:58:11] That would be first. And then there wasn’t, and there was no order after that. I would say email is really important. Reviews are really important. I think that, uh, I would until you are starting to see some more sales and you can invest in some stuff, um, I don’t think that, uh, you know, text marketing or rewards programs are gonna make or break anything. These are things you should think about way down the line. Okay. Um, I think that email is definitely super important from the gate. And then reviews are going to be good for that social proof. The let’s go back to, let’s go back to building that store though first. And I said you can just get launched with debut and get, get going once you kind of start to see some sales coming. And then I’d say, all right, invest into your site.

Chase: [00:58:52] So if you want to have a little bit better design of your website, uh, you know, there’s a premium theme, uh, area of Shopify where you can go and find some cool themes. And then there’s some other ones that are on sites called Pixel Union is one that’s awesome and out of the sandbox. Uh, so those are themes that you can download. So it’s just a design for your store. So it can just elevate the look and feel of your store. And some of those themes come with, uh, a few extra features that are really cool. Um, I know some them actually nowadays come with smart search solutions. The ones I recommended though are a little more robust. Uh, but you know, for your first phase of it, you could just use the one that’s caked into a theme.

Stephen: [00:59:32] You know, I’m sitting here thinking about, you know, we’ve been talking almost an hour and somebody really, if they have the right product, right, or if they have a product and they’ve done their proof of concept on Amazon, we’re talking within a few months if the he follow or if she follows this advice, they’ve got a real viable brand lean. Oh, absolutely. Let me think about that. Does that, I mean, that just didn’t exist. You know, what it would have taken for Levi’s to create Levis back in the day. I mean, think about that. And yet today, yeah, and yet today you have companies, clothing companies that are created that have levels of success. Maybe they don’t have Levi level success, but how many brands have gone away while Levi sustained? Um, and yet they’ve been able to do this in a short period of time. Dude. Oh, you get me excited. You got me pumped. I’m gonna have my stuff. I

Chase: [01:00:23] Phi is amazing. Uh, just to kind of harp on how much we like them. Their ecosystem is really cool. Uh, we’re, we’re experts, we’re partners with Shopify. Shopify is really supportive of the community. Um, you know, they sponsor meetups in local areas, so go and try to see if there’s a Shopify meet up in your area. Um, I know, I know of meetups in Chicago, Denver, Columbus, Ohio, Atlanta, Georgia, San Diego, La, New York, Boston, uh, Toronto. You know, if you want to get out and meet, meet people in the ecosystem, you know, that’s really cool.

Stephen: [01:00:54] And those people have seen all the issues and challenges you’re up against and that’s the place to get it solved, right? Cause they’ve already, oh yeah, here’s how you do that, right? You’re going to be

Chase: [01:01:02] in a, in a room full of people that are in various levels of dealing with the problems that you have.

Stephen: [01:01:08] Dude, I’m honest. E-Commerce is the podcast. Uh, just honesty, commerce, a weekly podcast. Um, and it’s chase at electric I. Dot. Io. If somebody wants more information but go check out electric I. Dot. Io because just took out the blog posts alone and you’re going to learn a tremendous amount. Dude, I thank you so much. I’m very excited. Um, I’m excited to see what you do next. Cause it sounds like you’re pretty busy, but it’s very cool to me that you’re helping these small brands really be successful. I just, it’s very exciting and they’re doing it on their own. Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it.

Chase: [01:01:44] Thank you. It’s, yeah, it’s very, very fun. The best part about it is I learned all these cool things about the industries, you know, so I’m always learning. Uh, but the cool thing about e-commerce is that kind of goes back to being, you need to use these same systems. And it, it just goes back to being, having a system mentality. And that’s the only way to scale

Stephen: [01:02:03] content production system. Love that term. I wish you nothing but success. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great Guy. Lot of knowledge, a lot of experience. And again, um, I’m taken back on this content production system. Just putting that in place, determine what it is. Then repurpose, repurpose, repurpose, and many different ways. And one of the cool parts of the conversation was about using youtube. You don’t have to make it exactly the same as what your written blog post is. Don’t make it something different than refer them back to each other and refer back to you. And most of all, create that email list. Love it, love it, love it. Reach out to him if you want to learn more. Um, I think he’s got a wealth of information. Check out his podcast, honesty, commerce.com. Honest e-commerce, and he is, uh, electric. I. Dot. Io e-commerce, momentum.com e-commerce momentum.com take care.

Cool voice guy: [01:02:53] Thanks for listening to the e-commerce momentum podcast. All the links mentioned today can be found at [inaudible] in commerce, momentum.com under this episode number, please remember to subscribe and like us on iTunes.